The Four Roses 2013 Limited Edition Single Barrel

100 ml braying jackass tolerator bottle

Tasting notes:
Wow, this has a heavy wood nose. Like a small claims court gavel banging out repeatedly for order, order, order in the court! This is a whiskey for rooms with high ceilings! I imagine the room has a mature cherry tree in full fruit inside it; what’s more, in place of a large pot, the tree grows out of a beautifully baked cherry tart. It’s like one of those wickedly clever Damien Hirst artworks. I just want to nose this all day. I want my glass duct-taped to my nose like that fraternity prank I heard about. What was it again, Stephen? Edward Forty Nostrils? This whiskey tastes so good it produces a Pavlovian response in my trachea but without any prior conditioning. It’s totally A Pavlori! It’s also viscous in the mouth. I think I’ve found the perfect solution for weaning chewing tobacco addicts from their filthy habit, that’s how effective this mouth-methadone is at producing a tingly pleasant chewy buzz of delight. This is a big, powerful, cherry tomato stuffed with C4 explosive and wrapped in a velvet cravat. It’s that kind of whiskey. Not a long finish, but we wouldn’t know for sure because we kept pouring more into our mouths. Scintillating! And certainly long enough to allow the magician to escape out the trap door. There’s rye on the back, like the snap of a snare drum on beats two and four. Perhaps it’s not the classic bourbon I recall from my Virginia youth. But isn’t it true that most classics didn’t begin as classics? Anyway, back to the glass. Adding a little water is like reading Sherlock Holmes fan fiction, or an apocryphal gospel, or driving a VW beetle with a Maserati engine, or hiding yourself in clay tunnels from bounty hunters. Which is to say that it’s different and yet the same, and holds the attention brilliantly. If the finish of this whiskey took the Myers Briggs Test, it would come out with a dichotomy-shattering combination of extroversion and introversion. This delicious dram cannot be contained by your schemes and charts. It asks only to be enjoyed.

Rating:

On the scale of transcendent comforts–The Four Roses 2013 Limited Edition Single Barrel is 100% cotton percale sheets–Don’t be fooled by the thread count braggadocio of other sheet makers. And steer clear of the greasy abomination known as sateen. No, this Four Roses expression is line-dried, occasionally ironed, crisply cool cotton sheets that you snuggled into at your grandparents’ home.

–John

–Our thanks to Nick Clark and the good folks at Four Roses for the sample!